With the recent settlement between the NFL and former players over brain injuries, our own Ross Smith offers a thoughtful opinion piece on the place head trauma has in sport and how it might change.

Professional hockey exists in two worlds simultaneously: the world of play and the world of business. Both have complex rules of conduct, both are literally and figuratively about goals, both attract participants of great ambition and will and these worlds coexist with varying degrees of harmony. Sometimes they sing like the Bee Gees, sometimes like Kanye West without Autotune.

Well, to say it’s a quiet time for hockey fans is an understatement. TSN is replaying old IIHF highlights while their analysts suffer through parlour games of deduction aiming to prognosticate the final line-up of next year’s Olympic team and I’m sure even they are asking themselves, “Why can’t there be a new episode of Breaking Bad every night?”

It’s so quiet that the best thing that the Winnipeg Sun could come up with to fill space was an article about Michael Frolik and Ondrej Pavelec being childhood friends. I actually didn’t know that but the article failed to offer any detail about their childhoods beyond just being teammates so I, intrepid reporter that I am, decided to do a little digging.

Beating the summer heat with a trip to the corner store for a taste of that magical elixir known as a “Slurpee” offered me a joyous encounter with a rack of vintage blogs known as “Magazines”. There I spied my favorite wastes of paper ever (no, not that, Perv-o’s, this is a family store): The Fantasy Hockey Guides! Was it that time of year already? “Squee!” I was giddy with anticipation for this year’s rankings. Their annual dose of wit and wisdom has never failed to lead me to mighty mediocrity in my keeper league (oh, this shoddy workman will blame the tools, people!) but, I realize, they can only provide limited insight.

Introducing a new contributor to Jets Nation - Ross Smith! Today Ross finally solves the issue of who is the Greatest Player of All Time. It's what the summer is for.

As we recline here in the lazy summer days between hockey seasons, we dedicated fans fill up the puck-shaped hole in our hearts by following the draft and the free agent signings and even pretending to care about baseball or the CFL until it’s time to hit the ice again. This summer, though, offered up the 25th anniversary of an event so dramatic that it changed the NHL irrevocably: The Gretzky Trade. Its mere mention in Edmonton still yields mournful stories of lost innocence and squandered opportunity - Gretz revered and commemorated like a war hero or a precious family member. Who can blame them? He is unquestionably the best player ever to lace up a pair of skates… or is he?

This Silver Jubilee marking Peter Pocklington’s transformation from mere unsavoury entrepreneur to “Wanted by The Hague” in a single craptastic business deal is the perfect time to renew Hockeydom’s favourite debate about who, exactly, is the greatest player of all time.